Artificial intelligence, machine learning, discovery algorithms… At this stage of human development we find ourselves gazing at a fantastic horizon, one where we have the opportunity to design intelligent entities -- robot brains. Will we design them in the image of our own neural networks? In today's research landscape, scientists are giving robots resilience and adaptability, deep learning and long-term modular memory. They're asking AI to perform complex tasks not so much with efficiency in mind as novelty. And guess what: it may change how we think about not only evolution, but the way we ourselves, as a network of individuals and organizations, approach innovation. Will we design for efficiency, our minds on reaching a fixed set of desired objectives -- or will we design for resilience, adaptability… emergence? We spoke with Jeff Clune of the Evolving AI Lab about how some of the emergent effects of machine learning are taking AI in a direction we didn't expect… and what it could potentially teach us about ourselves. Jeff's work has not gone unnoticed. He's been cited in Wired, the Atlantic, Nature, and Scientific American, to name a few.

DUBAI – The teaching methods of Kazuya Takahashi, 35, using Lego blocks and speaking entirely in English, may not be the norm in the Japanese education system. But on a global level, the educator, who teaches at the Kogakuin junior high and high schools in Hachioji, western Tokyo, is considered ahead of the game and has won recognition for his efforts to promote global citizenship. His methods may provide clues as to where education should be heading in Japan, a nation often criticized for focusing more on cramming knowledge rather than encouraging critical thinking. At the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai, which ran for two days from March 12, Takahashi gave a presentation as one of the 10 finalists for the Global Teacher Prize, known in the industry as the Nobel Prize in education. The event was attended by around 1,600 people from 110 nations.

JEFFREY BROWN: Five years ago, as a college freshman, Ian Burkhart dove into a wave at a North Carolina beach and broke his neck on the sandy ocean floor, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. Now, in a medical first, he has regained some movement in his hands and fingers through technology that communicates his thoughts directly to his hand muscles. It uses a tiny chip inserted in his brain and an electronic sleeve. Burkhart has learned to perform simple tasks, even playing a guitar video game. IAN BURKHART, Spinal Injury Victim: It is just something that is so fluid.

AI Business recently interviewed one of the UK's leading experts in AI for Business, George Zarkadakis. George has a PhD in AI, is the Digital Lead at Willis Towers Watson, and the author of "In Our Own Image: will Artificial Intelligence save us or destroy us?". George is also a keynote speaker at The AI Summit London, presenting on the many different ways that AI will be shaping the business of tomorrow. George answered a number of interesting questions giving us a taster of the insightful presentation to come at The AI Summit on the 5th of May. How do you believe AI will impact business overall and in what ways?

Between the 25 heroes at launch, the five factions, three competitive modes, and nine story episodes, players that pick up Battleborn should have plenty to accomplish. While teaming up with up to five players, Battleborn heroes work to earn loot, level up through three types of progression, and save the last star from slipping into the void. It is no secret that Battleborn players will be able to take up arms against each other in the game's competitive modes; Incursion, Meltdown, and Capture. However, Battleborn also offers co-operative players a chance to do their part. Nine story missions, and another five post-launch, are infinitely repeatable for loot, experience, and accolades.

Yuuta Banda poses for a photo with OriHime, his robot avatar. When Yuuta Banda was just four years old, he suffered a car accident that left him paralyzed, connected to a respiratory machine, and confined to bed for life. But almost two decades later, he's been able to experience different places, and even find a job thanks to OriHime, his robot avatar. "At first I couldn't understand what was so great about OriHime, but I gradually learned through using it that [the robot] afforded people with a sense of presence," Banda told me in an email. "I felt a greater sense of satisfaction as I spoke with people in different places to me through the robot."

VC Chris Dixon of Andreessen Horowitz thinks it's a lot harder to predict financial cycles than it is to see a new computing platform coming down the pike. As he noted in a recent post, new cycles tend to begin every 10 to 15 years; assuming the 2007 introduction of the iPhone kicked off the last wave, we're fast heading toward the Next New Thing. Or things, technically, according to Dixon, who we caught up with yesterday. Among the trends that Dixon is watching closely, he says, are virtual reality, augmented reality, IoT, wearables, drones and cars. Not that it'll be easy to make money off these newer technologies. In fact, Dixon suggests it could be ridiculously challenging, given how quickly Facebook, Google, and Amazon are bringing aboard related talent.

During my last interview I had a great talk with Daniel McDuff. Daniel's research is at the intersection of psychology and computer science. He is interested in designing hardware and algorithms for sensing human behavior at scale, and in building technologies that make life better. Applications of behavior sensing that he is most excited about are in: understanding mental health, improving online learning and designing new connected devices (IoT). Listen to more about why it is important to collect data from much larger scales and help computers read our emotional state. Key Learning Points: 1. Understanding the impact, intersection, and meaning of Psychology and Computer Science 2. Facial Expression Recognition 3. How to define Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, and Machine Learning 4. Applications of behavior sensing with Online Learning, Health, and Connected Devices 5. Visual Wearable sensors and heart health 6. The impact of education and learning 7. How to build computers to measure phycology, our reactions, emotions, etc 8. Daniel is building and utilizing scalable computer vision and machine learning tools to enable the automated recognition and analysis of emotions and physiology. He is currently Director of Research at Affectiva, a post-doctoral research affiliate at the MIT Media Lab and a visiting scientist at Brigham and Womens Hospital. At Affectiva Daniel is building state-of-the-art facial expression recognition software and leading analysis of the world's largest database of human emotion responses. Daniel completed his PhD in the Affective Computing Group at the MIT Media Lab in 2014 and has a B.A. and Masters from Cambridge University. His work has received nominations and awards from Popular Science magazine as one of the top inventions in 2011, South-by-South-West Interactive (SXSWi), The Webby Awards, ESOMAR, the Center for Integrated Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) and several IEEE conferences. His work has been reported in many publications including The Times, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC News, New Scientist and Forbes magazine. Daniel has been named a 2015 WIRED Innovation Fellow.

This article proposes a new grand challenge for AI reasearch: to develop AI system to make major scientific discoveries in biomedical sciences that worth Nobel Prize. There are a series of human cognitive limitations that prevents us from making accerlated scientific discoveries, particularity in biomedical sciences. As a result, scientific discoveries are left behind at the level of cottage industry. AI systems can transform scientific discoveries into highly efficient practice, thereby enable us to expand our knowledge in unprecedented way.

The 2016 winners were as follows: Tom Dietterich, AAAI President, for AAAI 2017 Awards, please Manuela Veloso, AAAI Past President contact Carol Hamilton at hamilton@aaai.org.